Name-a-Day Calendar, February 20: Hampton Pirates
Page 106 of 365
Chosen in: 1933
Chosen by: An unnamed New Journal and Guide journalist via student body vote
What is now Hampton University was founded in 1868 as an agricultural and industrial school for freedmen in the wake of the Civil War. The school began playing football in 1902 and played without an official nickname for a little over three decades.
In May 1933, the Hampton Script student newspaper ran a contest to pick an official mascot for the school. Many of the names referenced the area’s coastal nature and history of being in the general vicinity of Blackbeard’s reign of terror: Buccaneers, Pirates, Seasiders. Others didn’t: Ironmen, Wildcats.
“Pirates” was submitted by a writer at the New Journal and Guide who occasionally contributed to the Script and whose name appears to be lost to time. Their reasoning was that “it seemed uniquely appropriate because it hadn’t been abused by a thousand other colleges”. It ended up winning the vote handily despite the other, similar choices it was up against; 307 out of 577 votes were for “Pirates”.
I couldn’t find much on their pirate mascot, Pete, but I did find this bobblehead from the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum!
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